Hindustan Times

Dhrubo Jyoti

Dipankar Ghose

Emergency serves as an impetus for a landmark first: the first majority secured by a non-Congress party.

After a dark day, a vital shift

The 1967 election broke the Congress’s hegemony across India. For the first time, the party lost power in nine states; in eight others, it won only a handful of Lok Sabha seats. Its tally stood diminished, at 283. The Swatantra Party was the largest opposition party, with 45 seats, followed by the Jana Sangh, with 35, and the Communist Party of India with 23.In the 1971 election, riding on the popularity of prime minister Indira Gandhi and her populist slogan on eradicating poverty, the Congress bounced back. It won 352 seats, leaving both the principal opposition (the Communist Party of India-Marxist, which won 25 seats) and the old guard of the Congress (which fought under the banner of Indian National Congress (Organisation), and won 16 seats), way behind.This massive mandate was marred by Gandhi’s decision to impose Emergency in 1975. Nineteen months later, when she called for elections, her party was unceremoniously bundled out, doing well only in southern India. It won only 154 Lok Sabha seats, and the Janata Party led by Morarji Desai and crafted by Jayaprakash Narayan, won 295. For the first time, a majority had been secured by a non-Congress party.